Sunday, January 31, 2010

ENTRY 8

SMOOCH - YA

Dear Mystery Agent:

Sixteen-year-old Haley is ready for true love--but Biology comes first.When Haley decides to dissect a frog rather than stick to her beliefsand have her grades suffer, the pro-animal teacher deems amagical punishment. The teacher isn't going to let Haley get away with theimmoral choices she makes in favor of academic pursuits.With a sprinkle of eraser shavings, the teacher turns Haley into afrog, and seals her fate: dissection.

Haley's new gig as an evening frog isn't so convenient for her social life.She really can't explain to her sister why she wanders off each eveningand comes home naked and reeking of swampy water. Haley can'ttell her almost-girlfriend, either, why she refuses to go on eveningdates, even though she desperately wants to. But she can't helpit--each day at four o' clock, Haley turns into a frog. Just like thefrog in the fairy tale, she's going to spend each night enchanted,unless she can convince her frog-phobic princess to kiss her. Ofcourse, if the spell lasts too long, she's going to be the one on thedissecting table.

SMOOCH is a young adult novel complete at 48,000 words. I wouldbe glad to send SMOOCH upon request. Thank you for your time.

7 comments:

However I do have a question: why would a pro-aminal teacher have their class dissect frogs in the first place? Perhaps it was a test to see if Haley would do the right thing? Or is this a different teacher than the one that made the class dissect frogs? Maybe make that more clear here.

This sounds like a great story! And the first paragraph strongly reminds me of the early 2000s TV drama, 'Popular', and the character 'Lily Esposito'. (Faces frog dissection in class. Strongly refuses... eventually hooks up with the cutest guy in class, but that's another story)

I think you should clarify in the first paragraph that Haley only turns into a frog at night. Because I had to double take and read the query twice to realise that she only turns during the evenings.

This is a fun idea. I just got a bit confused in the query, especially when your protag is 16 and you mention this is MG. Love the title, voice and premise. Just maybe clear up the teacher motive and add age range and word count.

I loved this and it made me laugh. Maybe clear up if there are one or two teachers though.

One other thing that confused me was the part about the almost-girlfriend. What is an almost-girlfriend? Maybe make that a little clearer too. Also I didn't get the part about the frog-phobic princess kissing her. Should that be prince?